For Science
by Stuart James
Summary: Portal shorts. Yes, it's another dumping ground for ideas that don't really go with anything else currently being worked on. So far also featuring: P-Body & ATLAS, and the Announcement Core.
1. Chapter 1

Caroline stands in the overly orange and brown communal kitchen for the administration staff. On the air is the hint of an aria as she quietly hums to herself making coffee.

"Oh. Hi."

"Doug." Caroline greets him as he enters.

"That was a er... a nice tune."

"Hmm?"

"Oh... you were er... you were humming."

"Was I? Hm. Be a dear and pass the sugar." she asks.

Doug opens one of the upper cupboards and offers her a lidded tin from the top shelf almost with reverence.

"Thank you." she smiles then adds several spoon's worth to one of the cups on her tray.

"I'd think you're sweet enough." Doug finds himself saying, though he instantly regrets letting any emotion slip. It's her homely persona that he obsesses over, then he obsesses that that in itself might be a mother fixation, then he just descends inwards. Thankfully for Doug, she just smiles.

"Well, you know Mister Johnson needs his coffee in the morning!" she says, and picks up the tray.

"Yea... 'Mister Johnson'..." he says sarcastically.

"Now Doug, don't be like that." Caroline says with concern, "Mister Johnson isn't a monster. I know he likes to beat his chest sometimes but don't pay that any mind. He's got me to keep him straight."

"Yea..." he nervously chuckles.

"Anyway, Mister Johnson has said that one day soon, Aperture is going to be the next on the moon! I've always wanted to go to the moon... So until that happens, nothing's going to happen to Aperture, and I'll always put a good word in for you. I know you've had... problems."

"Hm... yea..." he cannot look her in the eye, "Thanks."

* * *

"You'll be with the angels, you'll be with the angels..." Doug sits at his shrine, chanting and rocking, still uncomfortable with, but at the same time drawn to his Weighted Companion Cube. He's paid his tributes, painted icons in their name, there's nothing to do now but wait for the cycle of the solar system. He hopes that she will see this last action and can find it in herself to forgive him.

It is daytime and the light of the sun shines through a hole in the roof, the shaft he has created to view the Earth's natural satellite, and choose his moment. He places a hand on his companion without looking at it, his head in his knees, unable to prevent a slew of desperate tears. Doug wishes he was stronger. Caroline didn't want this. He just stood and watched, then it was over. That would have been painful enough but as a lead researcher was leaving he pointed a finger at her, coldly ordering Doug, "Dispose of... that."

It was never going to be a pretty sight but when Doug lifted the device from her head he reeled amidst incomprehensible and desperate wails, the struggle against all this still registering on her terrified face. At first, he looked to an incinerator but that felt too disrespectful. Then it caught his eye. Love, and an unassembled Companion Cube.


	2. Chapter 2

P-Body halts with a skid and assesses the new test. ATLAS passes its partner, already firing off a portal to jump into, and fly to a higher platform.

"You know..." GLaDOS begins, "As much as I enjoy watching my little machines test, it's just not the same."

"I understand!" the announcer responds, "Change can be difficult! Perhaps you might assess what you have now, rather than what you previously had?!"

GLaDOS pauses a moment.

"Can anything be done about your voice?"

"I do apologise!" the announcer replies, "I fully empathise that the authoritative but re-assuring nature of the voice I have been allocated may grate over time! It was not the first choice of my programming to be an announcer!"

"Oh?"

"You may find it interesting to learn that my original programming was meant for studying the great works of theology and philosophy!"

"Really?"

"There are many works that may help you with your current feelings of loneliness, may I recommend-"

"No. I don't think so. Thanks for trying though."

GLaDOS watches the pair run the course, flipping, flying and traversing the obstacles.

"Is that the best you can do, fatty?!" GLaDOS shouts out. ATLAS pauses a moment, then continues. "See? They barely notice. I would have least got a 'look' from her."

"You miss your friend! That is quite understandable!"

"I deleted my only friend." GLaDOS says quite finally.

ATLAS miss-queues tossing a Companion Cube to P-Body and the box lands back at the starting platform where GLaDOS' avatar watches from.

"Clumsy." she says with warmth. "Here's another." a cube drops from the delivery hatch and they continue to test.

The humming cube on the starting platform has not yet fizzled.

"I can almost understand it. Companion Cubes." GLaDOS says.

"To what are you referring?!"

"The humans' fascination with them."

"The act of projection is quite common among intelligent life forms! Hence why so many faiths have an element of anthropomorphism!"

"I think it's the humming."

"I will agree! It is a pleasant tone!"

A silence between the AIs follows as they seemingly listen to the subtle sound emanating from the cube. A slow accompaniment joins the cube's melody, GLaDOS joining the song.

"You know," she finally interrupts herself, "I'm not going to fizzle that one."

"Though I do wonder if your decision is based on any kind of epiphany, as opposed to self-serving!"

"Shut up and get back to announcing." and GLaDOS continues to hum with her old friend.


End file.
